Binding and diffusion of hydroxyl radicals on Si(100): A first-principles study

How dissociated fragments of multiatomic molecules saturate all active surface sites-H2O adsorption on the Si(100) surface

A fundamental question for the adsorption of any gas molecule on surfaces is its saturation coverage, whose value can provide a comprehensive examination for the adsorption mechanisms, dynamic and kinetic processes involved in the adsorption processes. This investigation utilizes scanning tunneling microscopy to visualize the H₂O adsorption processes on the Si(100) surface with a sub-monolayers (<0.05 ML) of chemically-reactive dangling bonds remaining after exposure to (1) a hydrogen atomic beam, (2) H₂O, and (3) Cl₂gases at room temperature. In all three cases, each of the remaining isolated single dangling bonds (sDB) adsorb and is passivated by either of the two dissociation fragments, the H or OH radical, to form a surface Si-H and Si-OH species. A new adsorption mechanism, termed 'dissociative and asynchronous chemisorption', is proposed for the observation presented herein. Upon approaching a sDB site, the H₂O molecule breaks apart into two fragments. One is chemisorbed to the sDB. The other attaches to the same or the neighboring passivated dimer to form a transition state of surface diffusion, which then diffuses on the mostly passivated surface and is eventually chemisorbed to another reactive site. In other words, the chemisorption reactions of the two fragments after dissociation occur at different and uncorrelated time and places. This adsorption mechanism suggests that a diffusion transition state can be an adsorption product in the first step of the dissociative adsorption processes.

Hydrogen Bonding of Ammonia with (H,OH)-Si(001) Revealed by Experimental and Ab Initio Photoelectron Spectroscopy

Combining experimental and ab initio core-level photoelectron spectroscopy (periodic DFT and quantum chemistry calculations), we elucidated how ammonia molecules bond to the hydroxyls of the (H,OH)-Si(001) model surface at a temperature of 130 K. Indeed, theory evaluated the magnitude and direction of the N 1s (and O 1s) chemical shifts according to the nature (acceptor or donor) of the hydrogen bond and, when confronted to experiment, showed unambiguously that the probe molecule makes one acceptor and one donor bond with a pair of hydroxyls. The consistency of our approach was proved by the fact that the identified adsorption geometries are precisely those that have the largest binding strength to the surface, as calculated by periodic DFT. Real-time core-level photoemission enabled measurement of the adsorption kinetics of H-bonded ammonia and its maximum coverage (0.37 ML) under 1.5 × 10^-9 mbar. Experimental desorption free energies were compared to the magnitude of the adsorption energies provided by periodic DFT calculations. Minority species were also detected on the surface. As in the case of H-bonded ammonia, DFT core-level calculations were instrumental to attribute these minority species to datively bonded ammonia molecules, associated with isolated dangling bonds remaining on the surface, and to dissociated ammonia molecules, resulting largely from beam damage.